Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 69 for the week December 2nd - December 8th, 2007. In this issue we cover Packaging Jams, MPAA being forced to remove the University Toolkit, Kubuntu Tutorials Day, an Ubuntu Forums interview, and as always, and much much more!

MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit

Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their 'University Toolkit' after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, Garrett eventually emailed the group's ISP and the violating software was taken down. On Oct. 24, MPAA sent a letter to the presidents of 25 universities that the association had identified as top locations for the downloading of pirated movies over online file-sharing networks. The MPAA's Toolkit software was designed to pinpoint students who may be using the University's networks to illegally download pirated movies. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/015229

Kubuntu Tutorials Day

On Thursday, December 13th, the Kubuntu developers are holding their first ever “Tutorials Day.” The Tutorials Day will contain talks, tutorials, and a Q&A session about the development of Kubuntu. With KDE4 only a month away, now is the time to get involved in becoming a Kubuntu developer. The Kubuntu developers have set up the IRC sessions below to get you started. The sessions begin at 15:00 UTC on IRC (#kubuntu-devel on Freenode) and will consist of six different topics.

Ubuntu Forum News

Ubuntu Forums Interviews

bodhi.azaen has agreed to be our next forum interview in December. A father of 4 living in Montana, he heads the UF Beginner Team, writes documentation (How-Longs, eheh!), contributes to Fluxbuntu and is a moderator on the forums. He is also involved locally. He refurbishes donated hardware to give to the needy and teaches Linux in the local Adult Learning Center. Read more here: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/an-interview-with-bodhizazen/

In The Press

First Linux book in Macedonian - European University promoted the book Ubuntu Linux by the authors Sime Arsenovski and Gjorgji Kakashevski. The book aims at supporting the idea, development and use of open source software. This is the first book on Ubuntu Linux and on Linux in general, published in Macedonian language. This book is intended for the beginners, who are coming across Linux for the first time, but also for the ones that are shifting from Microsoft Windows to Linux. The book describes how to use Ubuntu 7.10, which is localized in Macedonian language. http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/content/view/997/4/lang,en/

Dethroning Ubuntu -- What Would It Take? - Many people are looking to Ubuntu to be something that it is not: a mass market ready operating system designed to work with the same level of compatibility as Microsoft Windows. Ubuntu has a long way to go before catching up to other closed source operating systems with regard to GUI usability. For any Linux distribution to become remotely successful in the "non-geeky" world, it will mean developers catering to people who never want to hear the words configure, tweak, alter or update ever again. Dethroning Ubuntu is less about doing it with the specific distribution and more about being realistic about what new Linux users actually need from the overall computing experience. Users simply want a cheaper alternative to Vista and OS X. Because this is where Ubuntu differs in vision, the author believes Ubuntu developers will continue to be a runaway hit with computer geeks, but a total failure in the market place without some sort of realistic OEM-type intervention to get the distro onto standardized hardware. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3714986

Ubuntu 7.10 on PS3: Installation guide and first impressions - Learn how to install Ubuntu Gutsy (as a second OS) on your Play Station 3 gaming console. This article will give you step by step instructions for preparing and installing Gutsy on your PS3. The conclusions follow: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon has greatly been improved for the PS3 hardware. It can now recognize all the components of your PS3 console, like the Blu-ray unit, the Gelic network card, USB and Bluetooth ports, and the sound system! Even if the installation part takes around 40 minutes (four times longer than on a regular PC), Ubuntu proved to be quite fast on the PS3 console. Visit the link for the instructions and screenshots. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-7-10-on-PS3-73272.shtml

Phillips Technologies selling energy-efficient computer with price a fraction of many others - Phillips’ computer saves money on electricity costs. The new machine is called “Green PC” because it operates with a VIA computer chip and motherboard that maximizes energy efficiency. The manufacturers of the VIA chip claim that their processors are designed to consume up to 76 percent less power than similar products on the market. The Green PC is equipped with an 80-gig hard drive, 512 megabytes of RAM, a DVD burner and six USB ports. It comes with a keyboard and mouse. The computer sells for $299. This PC uses Ubuntu a Linux-based operating system, which makes its programs somewhat different from the Microsoft-based programs commonly in use. But Ubuntu’s user-friendly design makes adjusting to the new programs easy. http://www.register-herald.com/business/local_story_335231832.html?keyword=secondarystory

In The Blogosphere

Linux Is About To Take Over The Low End Of PC's - Opinion -- Sometimes, several unrelated changes come to a head at the same time, with a result no one could have predicted. The PC market is at such a tipping point right now and the result will be millions of Linux-powered PCs in users' hands. Four trends: user-friendly Linux desktops, useful under-$500 laptops and desktops, near-universal broadband, and business-ready Internet office applications. Put them together and you have a revolution. For the last two decades, we've been buying expensive desktop operating systems on business PCs running from $1,000 to $2,000. On those systems, we've been putting pricey desktop-centric office suites like Microsoft Office. That's a lot of money, and the convergence of the above trends is about to knock it for a loop. In the next few quarters, low-end Linux-based PCs are going to quickly take over the bottom rung of computing. Then, as businesses continue to get comfortable with SAAS (software as a service) and open-source software, the price benefits will start leading them toward switching to the new Linux/SAAS office model. http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2414535067.html

Cheap Laptops Bad for Vista, Good for Linux - Opinion: As laptops get cheaper, Linux and Windows XP are both making better business sense than Vista. The good news for everyone is that you can get a good, solid laptop for under a grand these days. The bad news for Vista users is that many of those laptops, even though they're sold with Vista, do not have enough resources to run Vista decently. When you see a cheap laptop, you're seeing one that almost certainly has a gigabyte or less RAM and some kind of embedded graphics chip, like an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 8MB to 64MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory. Here's the point, though: Home Basic offers nothing, zilch, that you can't already get with XP Home. It doesn't even give you Aero as an option. It's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of when we're going to see more Linux-powered laptops. Do the math. Vista doesn't work for today's laptop market. XP and Linux do. It's really that simple. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2222308,00.asp

Install and Basic Desktop Video - John Bradbury takes us on a video tour of his first experiences of Ubuntu. In this first of three videos, he shows: installation, updating, installing software, and pen drive recognition. His general impressions are very favorable and you can almost hear the surprise in his voice as things progress. Installation was straight forward and quick, taking only 12 mins. to install. Updates for the new install numbered 88 and John was impressed that he was getting not only system updates, but also software updates. After installing the updates he decided to try installing a piece of software. His impression after installing virtaulbox was that he could hardly believe how easy synaptic made it. His final trial for his new Ubuntu system was to see if it would recognize his pen drive, which it did without problem. After his first day of exploring Ubuntu, John was very favorable impression with the easy of use of Linux and Ubuntu. http://www.johnbradbury.com/ubuntu-video-first-impressions/

Ubuntu: Office Functionality - Day two of John Bradbury's video tour of Ubuntu, this one concentrates on the functionality of the Open Office software and file support. The first thing he does is to mount his pen drive and copy some document files made in Windows Office and test that they are compatibility with Open Office. All the documents John tried opened and allowed him to edit on command. He also tried to throw in a PDF file, a .vsd file and a .iso file. The PDF file opened write off, and the .iso file showed that he could write it to disc, something windows wouldn't do. The .vsd file was not compatible out of the box. According to John, native file support is vastly superior to Windows. John also tested flash support which had to added via a plug in, and printer support via plug and play. Another very satisfactory day with Ubuntu. http://www.johnbradbury.com/ubuntu-video-office-functionality/

Multimedia and Conclusions - In this third and final video, John Bradbury puts Ubuntu and its multimedia support to the test. John thinks that if Ubuntu is going to fail, it will be because of non-existent multimedia support. He chooses two file formats he believes will cause problems for Ubuntu, .avi and .wmv. Neither file will play out of the box, however, by simply installing the correct codecs both become functional. What really impressed him was the fact that the OS did the search of the repositories, found and installed the correct codecs for him. In Windows he would have had to do a search and then install them himself. DVD support was a different story. No codecs were instantly available. The biggest surprise came when he mounted his mobile phone and it popped right up in Ubuntu. It even played his mp3 music file with no problem.

Conclusions - John was very impressed with Ubuntu even though he only scratched the surface with these 3 videos. File support is excellent, and the interface menus are very easy to use. Being a long time Windows user, and a Windows system administrator, John thinks the best part of Ubuntu is that it is free. Free as in "no cost." "To see this kind of functionality and polished finish in an OS that is free, is Mind Blowing." Home users will especially benefit from using Ubuntu. http://www.johnbradbury.com/ubuntu-video-multimedia-support/